Attention-Emotion Interactions in Psychopathy

描述(由申请人提供)：拟议项目的广泛目标是检查精神病的发展和维持的风险因素，精神病是一种以慢性反社会行为(Douglas，Vincent，&Edens，2006)、掠夺性人际特征(Hare，2003)和糟糕的治疗结果(Harris&Rice，2006)为特征的人格障碍。本申请将测试一种新的精神病病因学模型，该模型在一个综合框架中重新概念化与精神障碍相关的注意力和情绪缺陷。具体地说，该项目将解决(1)情绪和注意力的交互影响，作为使用心理生理学指标(即，事件相关电位、肌电图)观察到的精神病患者加工缺陷的促成因素，以及(2)单胺类基因作为与该疾病相关的情绪反应缺陷的风险因素的潜在调节作用。这项拟议的研究试图通过对刑事司法系统中的高危个人进行抽样调查，研究精神病的生物和心理风险因素，从而推进目前对精神障碍的病因学概念化。事件相关电位、惊吓反射和遗传数据将从从缓刑和假释中招募的个人中收集，这些人已经使用精神变态检查表：筛查版本(Hart，Cox，Hare，1999)被归类为精神病态特征的高或低。这些测量将被用来索引注意和情绪系统的独特和交互影响，同时参与者观看与视觉复杂性相匹配的不愉快和中性的图片，这些图片选自国际情感图片系统(Lang等人，2005年)。在现有文献的基础上，假设结果将支持精神病的病因学模型，在该模型中，基因赋予在精神障碍中观察到的情绪缺陷的风险，这与注意力能力的下降一起导致精神病态特征。该项目的长期目标是提供有关精神病风险因素的数据，这些数据可用于改进对该疾病的治疗干预。目前还没有对这种疾病的有效干预措施(Harris&Rice，2006)，这可能部分是由于精神病的病因仍然不确定的事实。公共关系缺乏有效的治疗干预措施给刑事司法系统带来了巨大的负担，因为大约20%-30%的被监禁个人患有精神变态(Luss等人，1998年)，尽管一般人口中的流行率为1%。因此，这项研究能够为未来的治疗干预提供信息的程度，就有可能减少这种社会上相当重要的精神病理学类型所带来的经济和情感负担

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The broad goal of the proposed project is to examine risk factors for the development and maintenance of psychopathy, a personality disorder characterized by chronic antisocial behavior (Douglas, Vincent, & Edens, 2006), predatory interpersonal traits (Hare, 2003), and poor treatment outcomes (Harris & Rice, 2006). The present application will test a new etiological model of psychopathy that re-conceptualizes the attentional and emotional deficits associated with the disorder in an integrative framework. Specifically, the project will address (1) the interactive effects of emotion and attention as contributing factors to the processing deficits observed in psychopathy using psychophysiological measures (i.e., event-related potentials, electromyography), and (2) the potential moderating effects of monoaminergic genes as risk factors for the deficient emotional reactivity associated with the disorder. The proposed study seeks to advance current etiological conceptualizations of the disorder by examining biological and psychological risk factors for psychopathy in a sample of high-risk individuals involved in the criminal justice system. Event-related potentials, startle reflex, and genetic data will be collected from individuals recruited from probation and parole who have been classified as high or low on psychopathic traits using the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (Hart, Cox, Hare, 1999). These measures will be used to index the unique and interactive effects of attentional and emotional systems while participants view unpleasant and neutral pictures matched on visual complexity selected from the International Affective Picture System (Lang et al., 2005). Based on extant literature, it is hypothesized that the results will support an etiological model of psychopathy in which genes confer risk for the deficient emotionality observed in the disorder, which, in conjunction with reduced attentional capacity, result in psychopathic traits. The long-term objective of the project is to provide data on risk factors for psychopathy that can be used to improve treatment interventions for the disorder. No validated interventions presently exist for this disorder (Harris & Rice, 2006), which is likely due in part to the fact that the etiology of psychopathy remains uncertain. PUBLIC HEATLH RELEVANCE The lack of effective treatment interventions has placed a substantial burden on the criminal justice system in that approximately 20 - 30% of incarcerated individuals are psychopathic (Louth et al., 1998), despite a 1% prevalence rate in the general population. Thus, the extent to which the study can inform future treatment interventions it has the potential to reduce the financial and emotional burden posed by this socially quite important type of psychopathology